Anna Politkovskaya: Four years on
Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was killed four years ago today. Here we republish her last article for Index on Censorship
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Storm in a jam jar
The sacking of Moscow’s mayor Yuri Luzhkov this week brings an end to a long-running feud between the Kremlin and Moscow city government. Grigory Pasko watches as a well-known enemy of free speech cries foul
Yuri Luzhkov, the now former mayor of Moscow, has written a letter to President Medvedev. And it is now clear that Medvedev fired Luzhkov from his post for… journalism. Luzhkov, the journalist, wrote the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in his letter to Medvedev, the guarantor of the constitution: “The reason for the attack were articles in Moskovsky Komsomolets and Rossiyskaya Gazeta. I’ll be honest, it was not I who wrote the article in Moskovsky Komsolets. But I do agree with it. Persecuting the mayor for agreeing with an article?”
Admitting plagiarism, asking rhetorical questions and writing about oneself in the third person – these are all signs of a high level of internal agitation, of course. And it goes without saying that, as a creative person, Luzhkov simply had to bring up that infamous year of 1937, the time of Stalin’s purge, when, in the opinion of the author, there existed in our country a “fear of expressing one’s opinion”. Well, since Luzhkov has decided to bring up 1937, I thought to myself, then that famous Russian metaphor of power, the jar of spiders, serves no purpose (the struggle for power has been known since time immemorial as the struggle of spiders in a jar).
And so here I sit, a journalist who has worked 33 years in the profession, and I am searching for the words to defend Luzhkov-the-journalist. I am not having much success, because the image of Luzhkov that has built up in my mind over the years is not a very positive one: he played the loyal yes-man to Putin in all of the latter’s dirty deeds; created the monster-monopolist party of United Russia; prohibited gay-pride parades; dispersed all kinds of dissenters’ protests with truncheons (i.e. violated the constitution).
In his letter to Medvedev, Luzhkov hints that he just might join the opposition: they have pushed him into such a corner (just where did he find any corners in that jar?) that there can be only one way out – into the arms of the opposition. Luzhkov-the-writer, however, is not in agreement with the opposition and calls its leaders “all those Nemtsovs over there”. [Boris Nemtsov, former reformist minister of Yeltsin]. Luzhkov the man who joined the opposition – now that’s really something! Much more exotic than “doctor of philosophical sciences Zhirinovsky” or “Zyuganov who joined the opposition”.
Luzhkov-the-journalist also managed to bring up the matter of censorship: he hurled a brave and directly aimed accusation about its existence right at the president himself. And immediately added for effect that Medvedev is a weak president, after which Medvedev immediately fired him. Because weak people (and Medvedev is most definitely such a person) very much dislike it when someone reminds them of this. It would be the same as telling Putin that he is a coward – you can immediately expect to hear some kind of unpleasant squeaked retort about circumcision or the ears of a dead donkey.
How can we not defend such a man, o citizens? Courageous and wise, decisive and, no need to be ashamed to admit it, a person of talent. All the more so given that, as he himself admitted, he wrote the article in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the mouthpiece of the Russian government, himself. That is just what he tells the president: you asked – I wrote. After all, it was you yourselves that fell over my truthful and courageous political-essayist’s and castigator’s pen.
Here, it is true, one inopportunely recalls how this writer/political essayist/castigator had himself on many an occasion prosecuted fellow wordsmiths in his courts. But Luzhkov is now so pitiful and miserable that one wants to defend him. Decisively and immediately. To gently pat him on his bald head; to wipe away the tenacious tear, as big as a drop of honey; to utter a kind word… Maybe even – put up a monument to him, the great one. Something he no doubt has always silently hoped for.
<strong>Translated by Stephan Lang</strong>
<em>Grigory Pasko is a celebrated Russian journalist and a former Amnesty prisoner of conscience, following his arrest and imprisonment in 1997. He was awarded the Index International Whistleblower award in 2001 and the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize in 2007</em>
Illiberal exclusion list remains
In May 2010, the government’s Freedom Bill sweetened the pill of coalition for Liberal Democrat voters and libertarian Tories with the promise of rolling back the illiberal legislation of the new Labour years. No longer would we toil under the socialist yoke. We were promised reform of the libel laws, scrapping of ID cards, greater Freedom of Information.
But perhaps one of the most insidious restrictions on freedom was left untouched. The Home Secretarys power to bar people from entering the country on the basis of what they say. The Home Office has confirmed to me that there is no intention of changing the position on excluding people for their words. The power has been used at least once by Theresa May, to ban preacher Zakir Naik.
Attention was drawn to this power in May 2009, when the Home Office released its list of non-EU nationals barred from entering the UK for what a Home Office representative described to me as ”unacceptable behaviour”.
The list was varied to the point of random. While some on it clearly had links to terror organisations, and some had criminal convictions, others were simply, well, unpleasant. What’s more, it was clear that even the ones who did have convictions were being excluded on the grounds of what they said.
Some, such as shock jock Michael Savage and Reverend Michael Phelps (of God Hates Fags) fame, are mere controversialists. Russian skinhead murderers Pavel Skachevsky and Artur Ryno, will still be in jail long after their exclusion orders (which last a maximum of three years) run out. Newly-excluded Zakir Naik may be banned, but his pamphlets, books and DVDs are available in Islamic shops across the country. It’s difficult to see what the purpose of exclusion is beyond mere gesture politics. This impression is only strengthened by the Home Office’s assertion that the list of excluded is “indicative, not exhaustive”.
A nation does have the right to decide who passes through its borders, and to protect its population from genuine criminality and harm. But exercising this right in an attempt to censor people, or to “protect” society from their ideas, is counterproductive and futile, particularly in the age of the Internet.
Jacqui Smith’s barring of Geert Wilders only served to give him greater publicity, turning a minor Dutch politician into a national talking point . Even before the ease and speed of global communication we now enjoy, censorship didn’t work. The Irish governments censorship of the Provisional IRA through Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, first introduced in 1971, did absolutely nothing to halt its rise. The UK”s aping of the tactic in the late 80s just made the government seem petty. We deal with extremism by confronting its arguments, not by pretending its not there. The coalition should confirm its commitment to freedom and end the censorious use of this power.
Padraig Reidy will be discussing exclusion, censorship and culture with the Guardian’s Sarfraz Manzoor and Douglas Murray of the Centre for Social Cohesion at Two Minute Hate, Monday 20 September, as part of the Free Word Festival
European Court ruling strengthens press freedom for journalists
In a landmark judgment, the European Court of Human Rights overturned a ruling today that forced Dutch journalists to reveal their sources. The ruling will provide significant protection for journalists. Index on Censorship was amongst the media organisations that intervened in the case.
Mark Stephens, media lawyer from Finers Stephens Innocent LLP and a trustee of Index, said, “In this respect, if no other, Europe has a firmer protection for free speech than the US and so today’s decision is very much to be celebrated. The judgment firmly demonstrates that European governments cannot use clumsy police work to make journalists the surrogates for law enforcement.”
In January 2002, police had ordered journalists working for Sanoma Uitgevers, a Dutch magazine publishing company, to hand over photographs of illegal car races. Its publication Autoweek had promised anonymity to participants in the races as a condition for covering the story. Police believed that one of the cars had been used to make a getaway in a burglary.
The ruling today has received positive feedback from experts, who believe it is a step towards significant and clearer protection for journalists across Europe.
“This ruling was an acid test for the Court and for media freedom across Europe. It sets a high benchmark for protection of journalistic materials and will force police and prosecutors across Europe, from Russia to France, to change their practices,” said Geoffrey Robertson QC, counsel for the coalition of intervening organisations including Index on Censorship, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Article 19 and the Guardian.
Peter Noorlander, legal director at Media Legal Defence Initiative, which also intervened in the case, said: “Law enforcement can no longer ask media to relinquish journalistic material unless as a matter of last resort in the investigation of a serious crime, and after having sought judicial authorisation,” he said.